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Brasil, Beleza?!, Lange Voorhout, The Hague

This year’s sculpture show on Lange Voorhout, organized by Museum Beelden aan Zee, exhibits works by Brazilian artists.

There are only eleven works by ten artists, some of them quite big, which is a good choice as it reduces the influence of non-artistic objects in this chic avenue.

Some of the sculptures have a non-too-deep-digging feel-good mentality, like OPAVIVARÁ by the Namoita collective, and

Empate by Marcius Galan. In this last work fraternity in sports is symbolised, but one might doubt if any ball could pass through these rings.

Other works try to show more of the daily realities in the life of common Brazilians, like Espaço Entre by Marcelo Cidade with graffiti turned outside-in,

Flags by João Loureiro that show cheques of different Brazilian banks, that is if there is some wind to make the flags fly,

Tower Tamariu by Héctor Zamora, an ode to the hard and heavy labour man has to perform individually in order to build a living, and

Academia by Marcos Chaves, a kind of replica of the kind of sports schools that are built by Brazilians in public space with makeshift materials.

Some works reflect on Brazilian cultural history and its ties with Western Europe like Adriana Varejão’s Panacea Phantastica which shows the idea of Portuguese azulejos decorated with Brazilian medicinal herbs and plants, or

In the corner of life by Ernesto Neto which shows the Brazilian answer to European and North American modernism.

There are only three works that have no clear connection at first sight to Brazil as a country or as a culture, they are Adrift by Valeska Soares,

Muro by Eduardo Coimbra

and Animal nature by Neto which is both robust and elegant.

Curators Carolyn Drake and Alessandra Laitempergher have made a well balanced choice and an agreeable public show on Lange Voorhout. Three works are favourite, as far as i am concerned. There are Zamora’s cargo bikes which show both the lightness and heaviness of life itself.

Coimbra’s wall-on-wheels gives an intriguing alternative for something that usually looks quite definitive.